Nauvoo, July 25-26

This is Mike blogging about the trip Melissa and I took to Nauvoo, IL last weekend. Going into this trip, we were really excited because, although we've visited Nauvoo a few times since moving to Illinois, we still had not seen the LDS pageant in Nauvoo. Here's a recap of our trip.


On our way to Nauvoo, we crossed the Mississippi River at the Illinois-Iowa border and saw that the flood waters still have not completely receded. In this photo, you can see that the water comes all the way up to the road. Actually, the water covers this road over one stretch. To keep the road open, workers have piled gravel on top of the road to keep the road surface above water.


Once we passed the flood zone, we got into Nauvoo for the festivities. We saw people dancing in costume to bagpipe music. I've been considering wearing a kilt to beat the heat. Melissa tells me that skirts are even cooler than shorts.



This was our view from where we sat for the pageant. The temple is such an inspirational sight! My favorite part of the pageant was the triumphant finale when the temple was lit with floodlights, and we heard President Hinckley's voice over the speakers declaring that the Nauvoo Temple facing west and the Salt Lake City Temple facing east stand as monuments to our pioneer heritage. (That's a very loose paraphrase, by the way.)

One of the major highlights of our trip, for me, was our discovery of the Nauvoo Land and Records Office. This is kind of like a family history research center where you can find information about who rented and owned land in Old Nauvoo and where those land holdings are located. The Land and Records Office also has records about who performed ordinances in the original Nauvoo Temple in 1846. Melissa was very patient with me while I looked up information on some of my ancestors and saved those files onto a CD. This was a very exciting discovery for me!


This is me in front of what was the home of George Laub, one of my ancestors who lived in Old Nauvoo.